Those killed in Saturday evening’s flash flood in Upper Makefield Township are being remembered in the community.
Just past 6 p.m. Saturday, 11 vehicles were trapped along Washington Crossing Road (Route 532). While a number of people were rescued, five did not survive and Matilda (Mattie) Sheils, 2, and Conrad Sheils, 9-months-old, remained missing as of Wednesday morning.
Katheryn Seley, 32, known as Katie, along with her fiancée, mother, and three children, including Mattie and Conrad, had come from their home in Charleston, South Carolina, to visit friends and family in Bucks County for a weekend BBQ. As they were driving, their vehicle got trapped in the sudden flash flood.
Jim Sheils, Seley’s husband and a native of Bucks County, rescued their 4-year-old son, Jack, from the vehicle, managing to escape the floodwaters with him.
Seley and her mother, Dahlia, attempted to save Conrad and Mattie from the perilous situation.
Unfortunately, the floodwaters proved too powerful, sweeping away the two women and the two young children.
Over the weekend, rescuers found Seley’s lifeless body.
The children’s grandmother was found alive and taken to a hospital for treatment. She has been released.
“As you can imagine, we are utterly devastated by the loss our family has suffered,” said Scott Ellis, Sheils’ brother in law.
A fundraiser for the Sheils family has collected more than $154,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Another victim was Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey. She was well known in the Washington Crossing Community because she worked as the Washington Crossing Post Office.
Credit: GoFundMe
Barnhardt, according to a GoFundMe organized by Sarah Orfe, was “an incredibly friendly, kind, and generous person, a lover of animals.” She had been caring for her 80-year-old mother, Pat.
“We, at the Upper Makefield Township Police Department, personally knew Susan Barnhart since she worked at the Washington Crossing Post Office. She was always so welcoming and kind to us and we will miss her deeply,” Upper Makefield Township police said in a statement.
The GoFundMe for Barnhadt’s mother raised close to $12,000 as of noon Wednesday.
Two other victims were Enzo DePiero, 78, and his wife, Linda DePiero, 74. The couple had resided in Newtown Township for years.
Zack DePiero, their son, expressed the profound grief the family is currently experiencing.
“Sweet and salty. My mom was sweet. My dad was salty, but also sweet,” the son said of his parents in an interview with the Bucks County Courier Times. “He was kind of tough exterior, but he was a sweetheart inside. They really did care about people; they really, really did – their emotional well-being, their physical needs.”
“If you had a problem, you called Enzo and he would take care of it,” neighbor Stacey Schnell told the newspaper.
The couple was returning home from dinner went they were caught in the flooding.
Yuko Love, 64, of Newtown Township was another victim of the fatal flooding.
Love was a well-known face amount the Newtown Athletic Club.
“This is where Yuko came every day. Sometimes she came twice a day. And she loved the classes here,” Linda Mitchell, a Newtown Athletic Club official told NBC 10. “And she loved the people. More than anything. And we loved her. I mean, everybody knew her. There’s more than ten thousand people that come here. Everybody knew her.”
Love’s husband was reported to be injured in the flooding.
A vigil for the victims will be held Thursday evening near the scene of the flooding.
